A Mac, Windows 10, and Siggy's software

Tinman

I've heard that Windows 10 can be used on a MacBook Air. Has anyone tried this yet? If so, anyone take it a step further and use Siggy's, Elite's, Wrightsoft's, Uponor's, or any other Windows based software on it?

My Sony PC died recently and I got the Mac to replace it but it really limits what I can do with software I already own. I've been doing things manually the last few weeks and its getting old.

Canucker

I seem to remember a friend of mine making a partition in his Mac hard drive and running XP off of it. I'm sure it's possible to still do that. Don't ask me how though, sorry

Tinman

No, that's good news. Gives me hope.

Tinman

Thanks Hat

SWEI

Parallels Desktop is your friend. Costs more than nothing (but not much) and has really good integration with the Mac desktop. At this point, I would suggest running Windows 7 in it rather than XP.

ChrisJ

I've never heard of a 64 bit OS having problems running 32 bit.

32 bit Windows can run 16 bit and 32 bit programs.
64 bit Windows can run 32 bit and 64 bit programs. Most of the programs you run are 32 bit even these days.

If you're running, or trying to run 16 bit programs you really need to get into the last decade.

Windows 10 should run anything, and I mean anything Windows 7 64 or Windows 8 64 did.

I've had Windows 10 running on a new machine I built for a friend back in December and it has worked almost flawlessly aside from some wifi hiccups. The only reason I haven't switched from 7 to 10 is I'm very suspicious of why it's a free upgrade and why MS is pushing it so hard on Windows 7 people.

If a Mac will run Windows 7 or 8, it will run 10. This is especially true for Windows 8 because all of the drivers I used on my friends computer with Windows 10 were actually Windows 8 64 drivers.

ChrisJ

Hatterasguy said:

I procured a pair of Extech TH-10 temperature data loggers. Units are new old stock............about four years old.

Won't run on Win7.

So, no, there are plenty of things out there that won't run on Win7. M/S just wants you to believe otherwise.

Sounds to me like Extech's software is either written poorly, or, is older than dirt and they're selling it with a new product.

ChrisJ

Hatterasguy said:

The point is that it doesn't work on Win7 and there is a lot of software that won't work on Win7.

The reasons aren't really of a concern.

Sure the reasons are a concern.
I have no interest in running old or poorly written software in the first place.

Stuff that won't run on 7, what are my options? Try to run an obsolete copy of XP 32 that won't support over 3.5 GB and who's drivers are all older that dirt? Forget that.

I switched to XP 64 when it came out to get more ram support and even that kinda stunk and went as soon as Vista beta came out.

SO, to the op.
I think Windows 10 64 will run on your mac with little or no problems. If you run into a driver problem, see if they have them for Windows 8 64. Same with programs, if they say they support Windows 8 they should work flawlessly on 10. Most likely true with programs that say they are good for Vista and 7.

Stuff from Windows 95 and 98 like Hatterasguy likes that barely worked on XP, forget it.

Zman

I can't get siggy's software to print on anything newer that windows 7. It just prints a black screen (and uses loads of ink).I have older 32 bit engineering software that needs XP to run. It won't run in windows 7 pro in XP comp mode.
@ChrisJ
I am glad you have had good success with the newer operating systems. Conflicts with older software are real sooner or later you will run into one.
Carl

ChrisJ

Hatterasguy said:

ChrisJ said:

Hatterasguy said:

The point is that it doesn't work on Win7 and there is a lot of software that won't work on Win7.

The reasons aren't really of a concern.

Sure the reasons are a concern.
I have no interest in running old or poorly written software in the first place.

Stuff that won't run on 7, what are my options? Try to run an obsolete copy of XP 32 that won't support over 3.5 GB and who's drivers are all older that dirt? Forget that.

No, the reasons are not of a concern.

The fact is that certain software will not run on Win7. It might be "poorly written in the first place" but that's irrelevant to the OP and to every single person who needs to use it.

Your options are to use WinXP using Virtualbox on the Win7 machine as I suggested above.

You can forget anything you wish. For others, it's a perfectly viable option and I use it myself every day.

BTW, 3.5GB is PLENTY for anything you want to run on Win XP.

Oh I'm sorry,
Judging by the help you had asked me for previously I didn't realize you were an expert on the subject.

My mistake.

The next time I have a hardware or software problem I can't figure out I'll send you a PM and you can help out.

ChrisJ

Is this the software being talked about?

https://siggy.borkedlabs.com/pages/welcome

A program written in 2010 can't print from anything newer than Windows 7?

Zman said:

I can't get siggy's software to print on anything newer that windows 7. It just prints a black screen (and uses loads of ink).I have older 32 bit engineering software that needs XP to run. It won't run in windows 7 pro in XP comp mode.
@ChrisJ
I am glad you have had good success with the newer operating systems. Conflicts with older software are real sooner or later you will run into one.
Carl

That's really weird.
I have someone I know using an early 90s MS Dos program in DosBox and he can print in Windows 7 even with such an old program that expects a parallel port.

I wonder what's so different in Windows 8 and 10 that would stop a Windows 7 program from printing right? Is that Siggy's software the same one I found that says it came out in 2010?

Zman

ChrisJ said:

Is this the software being talked about?

https://siggy.borkedlabs.com/pages/welcome

A program written in 2010 can't print from anything newer than Windows 7?

Zman said:

I can't get siggy's software to print on anything newer that windows 7. It just prints a black screen (and uses loads of ink).I have older 32 bit engineering software that needs XP to run. It won't run in windows 7 pro in XP comp mode.
@ChrisJ
I am glad you have had good success with the newer operating systems. Conflicts with older software are real sooner or later you will run into one.
Carl

That's really weird.
I have someone I know using an early 90s MS Dos program in DosBox and he can print in Windows 7 even with such an old program that expects a parallel port.

I wonder what's so different in Windows 8 and 10 that would stop a Windows 7 program from printing right? Is that Siggy's software the same one I found that says it came out in 2010?

I was speaking of this software....
http://store.hydronicpros.com/Software/C1003_1/

Condoman

My understanding of the differences in Win XP vs. Win 7,8,10 is the drivers for hardware. I have a couple of applications that will run on XP and not 7 because of the hardware drivers and the companies never wrote upgrades. I have a small netbook that is still XP that I use for these devices.

All my other stuff and I have plenty runs fine on Win 7 x64. This includes VB 6 and AutoIt3 programs I have written.

SWEI

Siggy's stuff was built using some rather ancient MS runtime components that have been long deprecated.

I just can't see the need for anything newer than Win 7 in my world at this point. I ran XP until they finally EOL'd the security updates.

Abracadabra

Hatterasguy said:

I procured a pair of Extech TH-10 temperature data loggers. Units are new old stock............about four years old.

Won't run on Win7.

So, no, there are plenty of things out there that won't run on Win7. M/S just wants you to believe otherwise.

I had a number of the TH-10 dataloggers. When I switched to Win7 none of them worked. They all worked with WinXP. I called Extech tech support and they were aware of the problem and sent me all new TH-10s to replace all my existing ones even though my old TH-10s were out of warranty.

ChrisJ

SWEI said:

Siggy's stuff was built using some rather ancient MS runtime components that have been long deprecated.

I just can't see the need for anything newer than Win 7 in my world at this point. I ran XP until they finally EOL'd the security updates.

I dropped XP mainly due to ram limitations, but I really like 7.
My concern is, does this mean I'm just getting old?

7 has been good to me ever since the Alpha release. 10 seems decent too, but why is it free to anyone with a copy of Windows? That really concerns me.

SWEI

ChrisJ said:

10 seems decent too, but why is it free to anyone with a copy of Windows? That really concerns me.

A: Because they royally screwed up on 8.x and Corporate America basically refused to participate.

B: Because 10 completes their move to a subscription-based model. It is truly not under your control and MS can do pretty much anything they want to any machine that's running it.

ChrisJ

SWEI said:

ChrisJ said:

10 seems decent too, but why is it free to anyone with a copy of Windows? That really concerns me.

A: Because they royally screwed up on 8.x and Corporate America basically refused to participate.

B: Because 10 completes their move to a subscription-based model. It is truly not under your control and MS can do pretty much anything they want to any machine that's running it.

So what you're saying is my concern is warranted.

ChrisJ

Hatterasguy said:

Abracadabra said:

Hatterasguy said:

I procured a pair of Extech TH-10 temperature data loggers. Units are new old stock............about four years old.

Won't run on Win7.

So, no, there are plenty of things out there that won't run on Win7. M/S just wants you to believe otherwise.

I had a number of the TH-10 dataloggers. When I switched to Win7 none of them worked. They all worked with WinXP. I called Extech tech support and they were aware of the problem and sent me all new TH-10s to replace all my existing ones even though my old TH-10s were out of warranty.

Excellent.

I called them and they stated, "Where did you get those? Probably ought to buy some new and current ones."

Thanks for the help..........(rolleyes).

Interesting, sounds familiar!
Any software that won't even run on Windows 7 is old junk i my eyes especially now.

SWEI

Some older embedded system stuff can still be accessed using open source software -- at least for basic functions.

Harvey Ramer

Hydronicad was designed to run on windows xp. I use it in windows 8.1 in program compatibility mode. It works well for the most part. A few quirks. I have to save my work very frequently so all is not lost if it fritzes out.

ChrisJ

Designed to run on an OS and computers made 14 years ago.......

Try to run Apple software that came out 14 years ago, it won't happen, at all.

SWEI

Harvey Ramer said:

Hydronicad was designed to run on windows xp.

I'm not sure of the history timeline on Hydronicad, but the tools it was built with were actually designed for Windows 95/98. Most apps built using them actually worked better under XP. A few updates and bugfixes to the underlying libraries kept everything humming along with minimal effort on the part of the developers for at least a decade.

MS has been through a lot of software architecture gymnastics since then -- to the point where there's no easy upgrade from that far back.